For Ferelden
by EdenLake
Summary: Ten years after Queen Anora granted Elissa Cousland the Teyrnir of Gwaren for her role in ending the Blight, the Queen wants something that the Hero of Ferelden is not inclined to give.
1. The Benefits of the Arrangement

"Absolutely not!"

Bann Teagan had been warned to expect resistance, but he was unprepared for the virulence of Elissa's resolve against the proposal he'd been sent to convey.

"I'm merely the messenger, Your Grace," he replied, cautiously, mindful that the Teyrna of Gwaren was reportedly as good with a blade today as she'd been ten years ago at the Siege of Denerim. "The Queen asks only that you consider the benefits of…the arrangement."

"The arrangement?" she scoffed, going to the window. She peered out to the courtyard, where Alistair and their son, Duncan, were swordfighting with sticks. Alistair showed the boy how to thrust and parry, and then collapsed exaggeratedly onto the ground from mock mortal mounds. Elissa smiled.

Teagan continued carefully, "Your son and the Queen's daughter would seem to be of an appropriate age to—"

"Teagan, unless you're about to say 'share toys,' I suggest you stop right there," she warned, without taking her eyes off her boy.

The boy was a singular miracle; Grey Wardens were not exactly known for their fertility. When Elissa had found herself with child at Weisshaupt, no one had been more surprised than she. Some of their fellow wardens had theorized that it was because she and Alistair were both wardens, both bearing the taint, that such a thing was possible; it was a thought that shook Elissa to her core, that their child might be marred by his parents' taint. More than one warden at Weisshaupt had urged Elissa and Alistair to consider "ending it." Instead, they were married, and returned to Ferelden, hoping for the best.

But the boy had been born healthy, and grown into the strong and gleeful four-year-old now before her. In darker moments, Elissa wondered whether his conception didn't have something to do with the results of the mage Avernus's research at Wardens' Keep, or, more distressingly, the ritual with Morrigan. But over the years she had learned to count her blessings, and now refused to dwell on it.

Anora couldn't have been happy with the news, Elissa knew. After all, the boy was Maric's grandchild, something that Anora was supposed to have had. The prevailing wisdom of the Bannorn was that news of the Teyrna's pregnancy had spurred the widowed queen to finally take a new husband, quickly settling on Bann Sighurd's son, Oswyn, to secure a royal line of her own. Like most of Anora's endeavors, it met with an almost disturbingly efficient success: a royal princess born within the year.

Elissa, for her part, had tried to be tactful. She'd invited none of the Bannorn to her son's naming ceremony save for his Uncle Fergus. She'd never taken Duncan to Denerim, nor did she plan to. Elissa, Teyrna of Gwaren, and her husband Alistair had sworn their loyalty to Queen Anora, and they meant to stand by it.

Only now, the queen was asking for too much. The queen was asking for their son.


	2. The Cousland in Her

"It's the Cousland in her," Eamon explained to an exasperated queen. "It's Bryce's influence. You know, when she was born, the gossip of the Bannorn had her pegged as your rival. Everyone expected Bryce to bring her to Denerim and parade her in front of Cailan as soon as she was of age. But he didn't. He was never interested in siring a royal line, and I'm not surprised she's not, either. After all, if she had royal aspirations, she'd have put Alistair on the throne."

"You would have liked that, wouldn't you?" Anora snapped. It was still a point of tension between the queen and the arl, no matter how much she had come to trust his advice.

"Your Majesty, we are on the same side here."

Anora's hands balled into fists, white with rage, but she knew Eamon was right. Bryce Cousland had never been an ambitious man. His humility had been his greatest virtue and his ultimate undoing. As a man happy to do his duty and receive only that in return, he could not conceive that some—that Howe—might covet more.

Still, Anora had thought the daughter shrewder than her father. The queen understood immediately why the warden had asked for a title of her own. With her brother as Teyrn of Highever and herself installed in Gwaren, Elissa would be in a position to protect that which she loved most—Alistair—from any…"intrigues" the new queen might otherwise consider for the royal bastard. _She doesn't trust me_, Anora had thought. _Good on her; I wouldn't either_.

It was from this line of thinking that Anora bore her conviction that the stubborn Teyrna could be made to see sense, to do what was right for Ferelden. A Theirin heir to the throne, a royal line infused with the blood of Ferelden's greatest heroes; surely the Hero of Ferelden could not deny her country that which was in her power to give.


	3. Into the Fire

"She named it 'Moira?'" Alistair chuckled. "Subtle!"

Elissa shot him a sideways look. "It's not an _it_; it's a _she_."

"I would hope so, for Duncan's sake!"

"Alistair, be serious! This is serious!" Even as she said it, she felt the smile creeping onto her face. Alistair's good humor had that way about it, tickling her just as she was trying to keep a straight face.

It was all a little ridiculous, she had to admit. The Princess Royal was barely out of swaddling clothes, and Elissa had recently tried in vain to convince her son that his mother _did not_ carry the dreaded "girl boogies." (Alistair, she noted, had been mischievously unhelpful on that point.) Still, Anora seemed to have her mind set on a course of action, and Elissa did not look forward to a decade-long struggle with Ferelden's queen over the fate of her son.

"You know she won't relent," she continued, almost to herself. "She's set on her prize; he's Maric's only—"

She stopped short, a long-dormant memory suddenly choking her speech.

Alistair looked over at her quizzically, before he realized.

"Darling," he said gently, "that's not something to think about now. She's long gone, good as her word."

Elissa forced a smile through her distress. "Since when do you trust Morrigan?"

"Since I realized that you do," he replied, walking over and kissing his wife on the head. "Besides," he continued on his way out the door, "who knows if that crazy ritual of hers actually worked...for her, I mean."

Elissa waited for her husband to exit the room before she even allowed herself to think it: _I do_.

------------

At the time, she couldn't have said honestly why she'd done it. She just did it.

The Chasind courier had come to Amaranthine: a message for the Ferelden warden, the boy one. But he'd been away, out building a monument to someone or something. "Give it to the girl,"—the guard's instructions. They were attached at the hip anyway.

A crude scrap of paper, but folded and sealed carefully, almost delicately, addressed simply to "Alistair," in a hand that was sure and firm, too much so for a common Chasind.

The impulse to open it went past curiosity and into sheer instinct, the same feeling as when she encountered a locked chest or a bolted door, and her fingers worked with an almost preternatural dexterity to keep the seal intact. But what she found inside was not treasure, but poison.

"Alistair, her name is Cara."

In an instant she had crumpled the hateful thing into her hand and hurled it into the fire, almost immediately horrified at what she had done. She'd felt tears welling in her eyes, but had pushed them down with a barrage of justifications. _Protect him_. _ Protect her_. _Wardens mustn't know_. _Anora can never find out_. _Better this way_.

Only now, with hindsight and age, could Elissa admit the truth to herself: _jealous_.

Not of Morrigan, precisely. Not of the ritual, to which Alistair had gone with a pale dread and from which he'd returned with a red-faced nausea. He had done these things for her, for them. And as awkward as it made the ensuing march to Denerim, the principle feeling she'd borne toward both of them was gratitude.

In Amaranthine, though, she'd learned yet another downside to being a Grey Warden, and had slowly resigned herself to her fate. Wounds healed. Futures planned. A journey to Weisshaupt, perhaps. But the wound reopened with the message from the witch, curdling a resentment in her that was all the more frustrating for being unjust.

But today, gratitude and resentment had both given way to an overwhelming guilt. When she thought of her husband with their son, the adoration the one heaped upon the other, she knew she had taken something precious away from Alistair when she'd burned the message. That Morrigan knew enough, cared enough, pitied enough to understand that Alistair would have wanted to know the child's name, at the very least, shamed his wife. In this one instance, the witch had been kinder to Alistair than she.


	4. Threats and Invitations

Elissa knew they'd made a huge mistake coming to Denerim well before she noticed Alistair's face twisted into an uncharacteristic scowl. She followed the rage in his eyes toward a statue facing the Orlesian Embassy.

Loghain.

She felt her own jaw set and fists clench, but with a considerable effort, she reached for her husband's hand and held it firmly. After a moment, he squeezed hers back and she felt him relax. It would not do to arrive at the palace in a fighting mood.

The rest of Denerim was largely a pleasure to behold. Anora's rebuilding effort had paid off handsomely, and the sheen of renewed prosperity seemed to coat the populace.

The human populace, anyway. Elissa craned her neck to look toward the Alienage, the massive gates barred shut once again after the latest in a series of food riots. That it required a garrison of armed men to keep the city safe from a slum of hungry people struck Elissa as somehow fundamentally wrong, but she knew she had given up the chance to make those decisions a long time ago.

Word had apparently spread that the Hero of Ferelden had arrived in Denerim, the carriage now trailed by an impressive stream of cheering onlookers, many of them children. Sitting in his father's lap, Duncan squirmed and fidgeted with the forlorn look of a rambunctious boy watching other children have fun.

_My dear Duncan_, Elissa thought sadly, _you will never be that free_.

Fergus stood waiting for them at the gates of his estate. His efforts to rebuild Highever neared completion, but even her brother's naturally sunny disposition was no match for the dark memories haunting Cousland Castle, and so the Teyrn of Highever spent most of his time in the Couslands' small, long-neglected Denerim estate, itself plundered by Howe and then badly damaged during the siege of Denerim. Privately, Elissa worried about his duty to his vassals and tenants, but she could not admonish him to return when she herself could not muster the courage to go back.

As soon as they disembarked their carriage, Duncan scampered off toward the armory to watch the guards muster for training, calling his father after him. Left to themselves, Elissa and Fergus quickly fell into their old rhythm, which is to say, she turned on him, and he defended himself.

"This is all your fault!" she cried, punching him in the side.

"Me?" he yelped. "What did I do?"

"None of this would be happening if you'd just married Anora when she asked you!"

"To be perfectly fair, she didn't ask me. Eamon did. Not exactly romantic."

She wanted to say more, but Oriana's memory stopped her, and she simply scowled.

"C'mon, sister, your son is having all the fun," he said, and the two of them began ambling slowly toward the armory. Elissa felt her worries fade slowly into the background as she watched Duncan climb into the high crook of the massive walnut tree that overlooked the area where the guards mustered. She fought the urge to holler at him to be careful, and instead closed her eyes, remembering long summer afternoons spent perched atop the battlements of Castle Cousland, hiding from Fergus and Nan and Aldous, before wars and coups and blights had torn it all asunder. She could not, in good conscience, make him come down. Not today.

"What was Cailan like," she asked her brother, suddenly, "when he was a boy?"

Fergus frowned. "I'm not sure I could really say. I was only a boy at the time, too."

"Was he happy?"

"Well, he was loud, and boisterous, and he was always running..."

"But?" she asked, her face crinkled with worry.

Fergus paused, trying to peer through a boy's memories with a man's eyes. "There was always something a little desperate about him, like he was-"

"-chasing things?" she offered.

"-that he would never catch," he finished.

"I don't want my son's life written for him."

Fergus reached out a brotherly hand and rumpled his sister's dark hair, throwing her neat braids askew before she ducked out of the way, swatting at him.

"No child of yours would ever allow that to happen, I'm almost certain."

She frowned. "You're coming to dinner with us," she declared, less an invitation than a threat.

"Oh, sister, I wouldn't miss this for the Maker's return."


	5. Best Friends

Anora knew that wagging tongues had proposed several theories as to why she had never, until now, invited the most important noble in Ferelden, a national hero and living legend, to Denerim. The most common theory, of course, was jealousy of the teyrna's popularity and influence. Others called it resentment, for who could forget the Hero of Ferelden's brutal execution of the queen's father, justified though it may have been. The queen allowed this rubbish to pass because the truth was even less flattering, or at least less queenly, in her own approximation.

The reason was Alistair.

Anora had long since given up her suspicions that Alistair meant to threaten her rule, his distaste for power written plainly across his face. But the man's resemblance to Cailan unnerved her; his existence was a constant reminder of the man she had once shared her life with, imperfect as it might have been. They had been friends, once, Anora and Cailan, co-adventurers and partners in crime, and even after the queen had outgrown her prince, she had never forgotten it. She supposed, rightly, that he hadn't either. But Alistair had Cailan's smile and his laugh, his propensity to skate by on charm, and his utter lack of perspective. Watching Alistair was like seeing a ghost. What he lacked in Cailan's authority and ambition he made up for in a plain and single-minded devotion to his wife. Observing the two wardens in the days leading up to the battle of Denerim, Anora had wondered whether she and Cailan might have been so content with each other, had the responsibilities of marriage and ruling had not been so unceremoniously thrust upon them.

But she could not let such sentimental considerations cloud her current strategy. As she had been reminded so many times before, the future of Ferelden demanded stability and continuity, an heir, and heirs in perpetuity. The princess Moira would have to marry someone, some day, and there was only one appropriate candidate. Far greater sacrifices had been made for the nation, and greater ones still would likely be required.

"Ferelden is not for us," King Maric had told her once, "rather are we for Ferelden." She had never forgotten it.

She could not forget now that the great man's grandson stood before her, clutching his mother's hand and pressing himself shyly against her leg.

"What are you doing!" asked Elissa, her tone one of amused incredulity rather than motherly remonstrance. "You're not shy!"

She and Alistair both laughed, amazed, as Duncan buried his face in his mother's soft skirts.

"He's honestly never like this!" Elissa protested, as Alistair pried their son off of her leg and lifted him up.

"Come now, say hello like a good little boy, like we taught you," Alistair said, bringing him up eye level to the queen.

The little boy nervously put out a small hand, and Anora smiled and gingerly placed her delicate white fingers upon it. Quickly, Duncan leaned in and laid a swift peck on her hand, before drawing skittishly away into Alistair's shoulder, hiding his eyes behind a mop of yellow hair. He was so plainly Cailan's kin that it renewed a well-spring of grief in Anora's heart, and she barely mustered the countenance to say, "It's a pleasure to meet you, ser. I have someone for you to meet, too. I'm hoping you'll be good friends. Best friends."

"I have a best friend," Duncan said quietly, almost in a whisper.

"Oh?" smiled the queen, "And who is your best friend?"

_Maker, don't say the mabari_, Elissa prayed, scowling at Fergus, who had brought the mabari pup down to Gwaren last summer despite Elissa's protestations that Duncan was yet too young to properly handle the imprinting.

"Cara," replied the child, in almost a whisper.

As Elissa felt her blood run cold, Alistair burst out laughing. "That's his imaginary friend," he explained, "the nurse told me about her yesterday. Says they play together at night after everyone has gone asleep."

Duncan pouted. "She's not imaginary."

"Of course not!" his father said indulgently. "Come on now, let's meet the princess, shall we?"

Only when Alistair reached out for his wife's hand did he notice how the color had drained from her face. Looking quizzically into her eyes seemed to snap her back into the waking world, and she said, in a singsong voice Alistair knew she reserved only for moments of bowel-emptying terror, "Yes, let's!"


	6. Awake in the Night

"Is it not best that we all stand together? For Ferelden?"

Anora's words at dinner rang in Elissa's ears as she lay awake in the small hours of the morning, unable to sleep. The queen had spoken with a smile, but something calculated in her words had set the hairs on Elissa's arms on end, and reminded the teyrna of the Anora who had sold her out to Ser Cauthrien after their aborted rescue attempt, the Anora who had ordered Alistair's execution, the Anora who had locked down Denerim's alienage. There was warning in those words, and they were meant for Gwaren.

In the years since the Blight, one or another of the disgruntled nobles of the Bannorn had occasionally come calling to Gwaren, discretely but in no uncertain terms offering to take up the banner of the rebellion in Alistair's name. They had all been discretely but firmly turned away. But neither had the teyrna seen fit to inform the crown of such treasonous stirrings, and Elissa saw with hindsight how even silence could be construed as duplicity.

She and Alistair would be gone in less than twenty years, called to the Deep Roads. Duncan would still be a young man. Considering how he took after Alistair, he could very well be an impressionable, romantic young man. He might well inherit Gwaren and Highever both. Would he be able to resist the temptation of a crown, if such a thing were offered to him by ambitious men with armies at their call, without his parents to guide him? Elissa's uncertainty made her shiver, and her conviction waivered. An arranged marriage would protect Duncan, would protect Gwaren and Highever, would keep treacherous banns off their doorstep, and do much to douse the stirrings of civil war for generations to come.

But it would also trap her Duncan, her beloved boy, into the life that she and Alistair had both managed to escape. If not for Anora Mac Tir, Elissa would have had to be Cailan's queen. Without Anora Mac Tir, Alistair would have had to be Ferelden's king. Instead the Maker had allowed them to forge their own destinies, and they had their beloved son to show for it, only to give him up now to the fate they themselves had escaped.

She would _not, _she resolved. She could not. They would raise Duncan right; he would be a dutiful subject of Ferelden as had been his parents and his Cousland ancestors since Elethea Cousland had knelt in surrender to Calenhad himself, and there was no reason to think otherwise. Apart from this, he would have his own destiny. he would make his own life.

There was a clatter in the hall outside. It was too late for a servant to be up. Elissa gathered her nightgown around her, careful not to wake Alistair beside her, and tiptoed out to investigate.

In the hall, she found an overturned lampstand, a mangy black cat, and her son peering guiltily up at her.

"The kitty was in my room," he explained, rubbing sleepy eyes. "I tried to let her out, but she won't leave."

Elissa turned her attention to the offending stray, who in turn turned its attention to Elissa, fixing her with a familiar, determined stare that made her blood run cold for the second time that night. Duncan didn't help matters by observing "I think Cara let her in."

"Duncan," she said, struggling to keep her voice low and steady, "go to your room. Go to your room and shut the door."

"But the kitty..."

"Duncan, NOW," she hissed, and her son shrunk back with a start, unaccustomed to hearing such hardness in his mother's voice. He turned and fled, tears welling up in his blue eyes.

When she heard the door close behind him, Elissa stepped backward through the hall, careful not to take her eyes off the cat, and opened the door to the study.

"After you, Morrigan."

* * *

Author's Note:

Thank you for your reviews and your patience. More coming soon, I promise!


	7. Apologies

There was a burst of magical light as Elissa closed the door behind them.

"You always did have impeccable manners."

"You always did love a dramatic entrance."

Morrigan, now her normal self, smiled at that.

"Why are you here, Morrigan?"

"Cutting to the chase, are we? Some things _have_ changed." Morrigan looked around the darkened study, lit only by the soft light of the full moon splashing through the leaded windows. The witch waved her hand, setting alight a candelabra on the near table, a not-so-subtle reminder to Elissa that she was unarmed and unarmored, but Morrigan had a multitude of weapons at her fingertips. Refusing to let her face betray her unease, Elissa waited for her answer.

"Very well," Morrigan continued, "I will speak plainly, as is _my_ habit. I know what the queen offers you, and I have come to urge you to accept."

Elissa's face flitted from confusion, to incredulity, to amusement. "Why thank you, old friend, I'll be sure to take your sage advice into consideration as I make _my_ decision for _my_ child."

"You are certain, then, that he is entirely yours?"

At this Elissa's face darkened dangerously. "What are you talking about?" she growled.

"Did you never wonder how you were able to conceive?"

Elissa did not answer.

"Did you ever hear of such a thing," Morrigan continued, "two grey wardens with a child? Did you think that the Maker had simply smiled upon you?"

"What do you know of such things?" Elissa snapped.

"_She_ made this possible."

Elissa felt her chest hollow out in fear. "What are you talking about?"

"My daughter's magic created your son. She pined for a companion, a friend, a little brother to love and be loved by her. She _willed_ him into existence. You and Alistair merely provided a convenient conduit."

Elissa thought she would wretch.

"Can you imagine, such magic, in a child of six!" Morrigan sounded wistful, proud, _motherly_. "The power of creation itself."

"You promised you would never return," Elissa growled.

The witch frowned. "I did," she said, her voice grown quiet and tentative, "and for breaking that promise I am truly sorry, old friend. But things change. Priorities change."

"Why do you care who rules Ferelden?"

"Because, my friend, the hearts of men are savage and predictable. They fear what they do not understand, and they hunt what they fear. There may come a time when my daughter or I, or both, will require more protection than magic can provide, the kind of protection that only a king among men can provide."

"You have an odd idea of motherhood if you think I can guarantee the kind of king my son will become."

"_You_ needn't guarantee anything. He _will_ protect her. This I know. He will know in his heart that she is responsible for his existence. He will know this as I knew it when I first laid eyes upon him."

"When you…?" But the answer was obvious. She might have been a bird or a stag, or a stray dog. She could have been anywhere. Elissa had grown comfortable, trusting, and weak, and now she cursed herself for a fool. She grew quiet, thinking.

"It's more than that, isn't it?"

"More than what?" Morrigan countered.

"Since when are you afraid of templars and kings? You of all people know how to raise a child out of the Chantry's sight. You don't need a king's protection for that."

She moved closer into Morrigan's personal space, determined to pry an answer from her. "What are you afraid of?"

Morrigan gave a wry smile. "You know me too well, old friend. Very well, I will confide in you. I owe you that much.

"Something is coming, a darkness of a kind neither you nor I have faced before. At first I thought it was Flemeth, but now I believe it is something even greater than she."

Elissa waited for more, but Morrigan was silent.

"That's it?" she scoffed. "You think I would ransom my son's future on your vague predictions?"

Now Morrigan was annoyed. "Very well, if you do not trust in my auguring then trust in the threat I pose. I think the Queen of Ferelden would be quite interested in my daughter, don't you? Specifically, she might be interested in the part you and Alistair played in her birth. The grey wardens, too, might have something to say about it. The possibilities are really quite endless," she declared icily.

"I see," Elissa said tightly. "So if friendly persuasion and maternal concern fail you, blackmail is the next tack?" She went to the window, gripping the sill and staring out into the moonlit night, imagining how she might manage to throttle her old companion, or impale her upon a candelabra.

"I did not come here to threaten you and yours, old friend. We are, after all..." Morrigan paused, as if searcing for the right word. "Family."

Elissa whirled around to face her, expecting to see the witch's characteristic cold smirk. What she saw instead startled her; that confused, almost fearful look that Morrigan got when she found herself cornered into sincerity. Her face must have betrayed her surprise.

"As I said, old friend, priorities change. The world is a dangerous place. You know this. You know that darkness can rise as quickly as the sun and destroy everything you love in the blink of an eye. I am here because darkness is rising. I know it, my daughter knows it, and now, so do you. The question is, what will you do about it? I aim to arm Cara with every weapon within her reach to protect her, including the armies of Ferelden. And no, I am not above being uncharitable in doing so. Not even to you, old friend."

"What makes you think that I give a damn about you and your daughter?"

"Because I know you. You love Alistair. You love him so much that you killed a man you weren't sure deserved to die, because he hurt Alistair. You love him so much that your love extends to his child by another woman. I know this about you. You will do what is best for your child, and for mine. You will do your duty to the ones you love, as you always have."

Elissa could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She was losing her resolve, and Morrigan knew it. She pushed her point.

"Together, at their fullest strength, they two may meet this threat and prevail. Apart, alone…I have my doubts. And I do not like having doubts."

"Just do you propose I convince Alistair of this?"

Morrigan waived a dismissive hand. "He will follow your lead, as he always has. To his and everyone else's material benefit."

Elissa was quiet, defeated, and then she blurted out suddenly, "I have one condition."

"Very well, speak your request."

"I want to meet Cara."

Morrigan looked askance, but it was Elissa's turn to press her point. "You have asked me to put my family and my country into her hands."

Morrigan's lips pursed in consternation. "Very well," She paused. "Will Alistair be joining us for this family reunion?"

Elissa hesitated. "I...No."

"I see," Morrigan smiled. "Old habits die hard, it would seem."

Morrigan went to the door and cracked it ajar. There was a burst of light and Elissa shielded her eyes. When she looked again Morrigan had returned to her feline form.

"We'll be in touch, old friend."

And she darted out the study door.

Elissa stood in silence for several minutes, unable to move. Eventually her knees became weak and she moved to sit down in a nearby chair. For how long she sat staring into the darkness she couldn't have said, but the gloaming light of dawn was breaking over the horizon when she heard quiet footsteps in the hall and the door cracked open.

"Mama?" The voice was small and uncertain.

"Duncan?" She stood so quickly the chair nearly tumbled over behind her, and she nearly flew to the door, scooping up her child and holding him so tightly she almost worried she might hurt him.

"Mama," he whispered in her ear, his voice quavered and hoarse from crying, "are you mad at me?"

"Oh no, my dear boy, no. Mama is so sorry she snapped at you." She held him even tighter. "I'm so, so sorry."


End file.
